Anaesthesia for electroconvulsive therapy

Anaesthesia for electroconvulsive therapy: An overview with an update on its role in potentiating electroconvulsive therapy

Despite advances in pharmacotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remains a mainstay treatment option in psychiatry since its introduction in 1930s. It can be used primarily in severe illnesses when there is an urgent need for treatment or secondarily after failure or intolerance to pharmacotherapy. The 'unmodified' technique of ECT was practised initially, with a high incidence of musculosk...

Bispectral index monitoring during electroconvulsive therapy under propofol anaesthesia.

BACKGROUND The accuracy of the bispectral index (BIS) as a monitor of consciousness has not been well studied in patients who have abnormal electroencephalograms (EEG). METHODS We studied the changes in BIS, its subparameters, and spectral entropy of the EEG during 18 electroconvulsive treatments under propofol and succinylcholine anaesthesia. A single bifrontal EEG, and second subocular chan...

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive Therapy for Obesity Treatment

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as electroshock, is a well-established, albeit controversial, psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Today, ECT is most often used as a treatment for severe major depression which has not responded to other treatment, and is also used in the treatment of mania (often in bipolar...

Ketamine Anesthesia for Electroconvulsive Therapy

Ketamine has long been used as an alternative anesthetic agent for ECT. Recently, there has been considerable excitement about its intrinsic antidepressant qualities when given at subanesthetic doses, intravenously or intranasally. We review the clinical use of ketamine as the anesthetic induction agent in ECT and discuss the evidence that it augments antidepressant response and reduces cogniti...